Loneliness in the Context of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann’s Life

Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (1889–1957), the author of this posthumously published article, cited classical and interpersonal psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949) to explain the subject matter, particularly what she called “real loneliness.” For her, it was “one of the least satisfactorily conceptualized psychological phenomena, not even mentioned in most psychiatric textbooks.” In other words, she felt that something significant had been insufficiently explored. While “On Loneliness” continued her previous writings, it was unique because of the extensive quotations from poets and existential psychologists such as Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966) and Rollo May (1909–1994). This suggests that the theme of loneliness was too personal for her to treat academically.

Who was Frieda Fromm-Reichmann? She is well-known for her contributions to psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy for schizophrenia. Her book, Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy (1950), has long served as a classical textbook for mental health students and professionals. Fromm-Reichmann’s influence can vividly be seen in a bestselling semiautobiographical novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Hannah Green (1964), the pen name of Joanne Greenberg. Greenberg, who as an adolescent was hospitalized due to schizophrenia, was successfully treated by Fromm-Reichmann at Chestnut Lodge. Fromm-Reichmann served as the model for Dr. Fried in the novel, a Jewish immigrant psychiatrist from Germany.

Since the novel’s publication, many readers have been captivated by Dr. Fried’s adeptness and eagerness to swiftly build and manage a relationship with the psychotic heroine, who lived in her fantasy world inaccessible to others. They mistakenly identified this character as Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. However, Dr. Fried was a fictional creation by Greenberg, not an exact depiction of Frieda. Greenberg’s portrayal of Dr. Fried needs to be complemented by biographical accounts of Frieda such as Fromm-Reichmann’s (1989) reminiscence and Hornstein’s book (2003), which may provide deeper insights into her experience of loneliness.

Frieda was born into an Orthodox Jewish family as the eldest daughter in Karlsruhe. In an informal 1956 interview, a year before her death, she said, “I was born to be a psychiatrist because, beginning at three, I knew all the secrets in the family and I took care not to disappoint my parents” (Fromm-Reichmann, 1989, p. 470). From early in life, people remarked, “She was understanding and responsible and saw to it that everyone was happy” (Hornstein, 2000, p. 5). Despite her early adeptness in managing human relations, it remains unclear whether she, as a child, could enjoy the typical dependency on her parents.

It was Frieda’s fate that both her father, Adolf (1859–1924), and her mother, Klara (1867–1952), were deaf. This made her an independent girl, skillful in communicating with them. Frieda’s identity may have been shaped by her sense of being indispensable to her disabled parents and her confidence in her ability to assist them. She found it deeply distressing to overhear her parents’ anxious conversations about the possible worsening of their deafness and its consequences. Nevertheless, she learned to handle issues that worried them.

Due to Klara’s emphasis on primogeniture, Frieda’s younger sisters were never allowed to argue with her. In short, she held a position of authority within the family. Frieda’s parents taught her to be obedient, so she was careful not to be smarter than her mother. The family, adhering to their Orthodox Jewish customs, had little social contact with the predominantly Christian world around them, or even with more assimilated co-religionists. However, for Jews of that era, Bildung or cultural cultivation demonstrated their affiliation with German values. Frieda’s grandmother, Amalie, played piano duets with Clara Schumann (1819–1896), and Frieda herself enjoyed playing the piano. Her mother and three aunts had all memorized Goethe’s Faust (Fromm-Reichmann, 1989, p. 470).

Despite being a shy Jewish girl taught to respect authority, Frieda occasionally revealed her iconoclasm. This was evident during two incidents while she was an externship student in Munich:

Frieda’s (1950) commitment to lonely and disabled individuals was professionally strengthened by two men to whom, alongside Freud and Sullivan, she later dedicated her main work.

One was Kurt Goldstein (1878–1965), a Jewish brain pathologist. From 1913 to 1920 in Königsberg and Frankfurt, Frieda collaborated with him in studying and treating brain-injured patients. In contrast to the prevalent standpoint of functional specialization, Goldstein advocated a holistic approach focusing on a patient’s overall response. The collaboration with him convinced Frieda of the healing potential in even severely injured individuals, a theme central to her subsequent successful work with those individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Goldstein (1939/1995, pp. 47, 244) coined the term “self-actualization,” which Frieda later integrated into her psychotherapeutic goals (1950, pp. 34–35). This concept was later reinterpreted by Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) in his theory of human motivation and personality (1954). Remarkably, Fromm-Reichmann had already embraced a humanistic orientation through her work with Goldstein before she delved into the practice of psychoanalysis in the late 1920s.

The other influential figure in Frieda’s devotion to isolated and disabled individuals was Georg Groddeck (1856–1934), a physician managing a sanatorium in Baden-Baden. It was from him that Sigmund Freud borrowed the term Es (id). This German word in Groddeck’s sense referred to an unknown force influencing health conditions in the body and the mind. His belief that no patient was beyond hope likely formed the foundation of Frieda’s therapeutic optimism in psychotherapy for schizophrenia.

Despite achieving international renown as an outstanding psychotherapist, Frieda experienced ongoing separations from her significant others in her later years. Her marriage to Erich Fromm (1900–1980) lasted only a few years and did not result in any children. The Nazi regime forced her mother and her sisters to flee German, placing them far from Frieda. She also faced the death of Groddeck during her journey for immigration to America and of Gertrud Jakob (1893–1940), her closest friend and colleague from Germany. By the late 1940s, Chestnut Lodge underwent gradual bureaucratization, diminishing her influence. The discovery of chlorpromazine in 1950 marked the beginning of the psychotropic medication era, casting doubt on the efficacy of psychoanalytic treatment of mental diseases. In addition, in the early 1950s, she faced condemnation by the New York Psychoanalytic Society.

Compounding her challenges, Frieda’s deafness worsened in her final years, increasingly restricting her professional engagements and social contacts. It was likely during this difficult period that Frieda wrote the essay “On Loneliness.” Could her statements such as “The need, or at least the wish, to have, at times, physical contact with another is a universal human phenomenon” (Fromm-Reichmann, 1959, p. 328) indirectly reflect her loneliness? Her caution about “a psychiatrist who is lonely” (Fromm-Reichmann, 1950, p. 12) may point in the same direction. Did she face real loneliness as the greatest enigma of her life?

In April 1957, Frieda received a visit from the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965), her longtime friend from Frankfurt and the author of I and Thou. Buber later confided to a friend that “Frieda was suffering greatly and was preoccupied with never having had children” (Hornstein, 2000, p. 331). On April 28, she was found dead, seated naked in her bathtub. Her will stipulated the burning of all documents. ¹ This decision may reflect the characteristic skill Frieda mastered since childhood: “the art of knowing things without being sensed by anyone what she was doing” (Hornstein, 2000, pp. 13–14).

Frieda ceased Orthodox Jewish practice with Fromm in 1924, later possibly connecting this decision with the absence of children and the disappearance of her family (Fromm-Reichmann, 1989, p. 480). Judaism, particularly Hasidism, may be a key to her work (Hornstein, 2000, pp. xix–xx, 299–300). Despite not belonging to any local congregation, her will ordered the funeral ceremony to be held according to Orthodox Jewish stipulations.